


What Counts As Human?

by AlpheccaCoronae



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Merlin is an emotional mess, but thats to be expected, merlin as jethro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlpheccaCoronae/pseuds/AlpheccaCoronae
Summary: Merlin looked up at the Doctor, pleading in his eyes and what could only be described as a melancholy smile plastering his face.“I don’t know anymore”





	1. I don’t know anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> OOPS HAVE SOMETHING I MIGHT ACTUALLY FINISH.

Half an hour later, and Merlin was silently sitting in a cold, metal bench, staring out through a window at intimidating diamond mountains. He could feel them calling out to the magic buried inside him. This planet was just too dangerous for him to be on much longer. 

“Jethro”

A voice behind him broke the silence Merlin was sitting in, but he didn’t respond, he merely sniffed, trying desperately to keep calm so as not to let his magic loose. In a worst case scenario, it could potentially cause some kind of massive explosion, shattering fifteen feet of finitoglass and condemning everybody on Midnight to a horrible death, just as he had the victims of the entity, now nothing but ash. 

“Jethro?”

He could have saved their lives. He could have saved everyone on the shuttle from a terrible, traumatic experience. He could have saved the hostess, the driver and the engineer, maybe even Sky. He could have saved so many people, if he wasn’t such a coward. 

“Jethro?”

A coward. That’s all he was. He was too scared to reveal his magic to anyone at all, even if it would save their lives. What did that make him? 

“Jethro!”

That shout seemed to be just enough to wrench Merlin from his daze. 

He quickly drew his hands up to his face, wiping away existing tears and taking deep breaths to ensure new ones didn’t fall. He steeled his face and looked up at the source of the voice. 

Time froze for just a second as Merlin realised who is was; exactly the man he had hoped to completely avoid. 

He choked, magic bubbling dangerously close to the surface. “I-I’m so sorry”

Merlin drew in a deep, shaky breath and hung his head. 

“Hey, hey, hey, no. Look, it’s okay”

The Doctor, it seems, could be quite reassuring when needs be. 

“No, it’s not” Merlin looked back up at him in confusion. “I tried to kill you, you should hate me. Why don’t you hate me!?”

He was working himself up into hysterics again. 

“Hey-no. Listen” The Doctor put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s human nature to want to protect yourself. You were just doing what you thought was right.”

Merlin snorted. “I thought I’d gotten past human nature a long time ago.” He mumbled to himself. 

He felt The Doctor pricked with curiosity beside him. Shit. 

“Oh don’t be silly. You can’t get past basic human nature.” The Doctor took a thoughtful pause, and leant forwards slightly. “Unless of course... you aren’t human”

Merlin froze, keeping his gaze carefully locked in front of him. 

He recognised The Doctor’s tone; it was unnervingly similar to how he had talked to Mrs Silvestry on the shuttle, but this time it was softer and gentler, and tinged slightly with - what was that? Hope?

He gripped the cold metal armrests of the seat tighter for a few seconds, before letting his body slump, resting his elbows on his knees and his head on his forearms. His hands moved back to pull at the hair behind his ears. 

He looked up at The Doctor, pleading in his eyes and what could only be described as a melancholy smile plastered on his face. 

“I don’t know anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

Another breath made Merlin's entire body shake, and once he had drawn in as much air as he could, a heavy sob forced it out.

"I don't-" 

Merlin desperately wanted to keep crying, to let feelings he had bottled up for centuries finally run their course. But the pulse of his magic was dangerously strong, and so determined to be let free that Merlin thought it would be loose any second.

Another sob, and his magic rushed to his fingertips like it was swelling, unravelling the seams of Merlin's body. It pulsed outward, escaping from the cracks in his fingers. Merlin jolted forwards, one hand out to grasp onto his magic as it escaped. His fingers curled around an invisible golden gas, and he closed his eyes, pulling it back inside his body.

He steadied his breath, and sat back into the cold metal of the chair.

After a few seconds he looked back up at The Doctor, meeting a questioning but not unkind gaze. Merlin decided to begin answering the mans questions by asking one himself.

"How old am I?"

"I'm sorry?"

"On the shuttle you had a sort of - some kind of handheld scanner. I want you to use it to find out how old I am."

"Okay," The Doctor's brow furrowed slightly. "But why?"

"You have questions, and i have time. Nobody else in the universe knows who I am."

"Well then why are you telling me?"

Merlin considered for a moment. "I don't know." He conceded. "I'm lonely, I suppose. And there's just... there's something strange about you."

The Doctor stared at him in silent contemplation for a few seconds before snapping back to his usual jovial disposition. "Alright then." He sat up straighter and reached into his jacket pocket.

Merlin saw him pull out the same object he had on the shuttle; a short metal pole with a metal pole at the top. The Doctor leaned in and pointed the device at him. It emitted a highpitched whirring for a few seconds, before The Doctor bought it back up to his face and grinned. "I thought so."

Merlin begun to panic. Maybe trustiong this man was a mistake. He didn't know anything about him. Then again, he had done more to save the shuttle than Merlin had.

"You're older than you look, aren't you Jethro? And I'm not sure you're human either."

Merlin exhaled, steadying himself.

"I guess you could say that."

The Doctor leant forwards, looking Merlin directly in the eyes. The gesture was probably intended to be comforting, but for Merlin, who hadn't had a proper conversation in decades, it came off a little unnerving.

"Look. I want to help you, becuase I'm not sure who or what you are. I don't know who your real parents are, 'cause they certainly aren't Val and Biff, they took the first shuttle out of here. So who are you?"

Merlin was silent for a moment.

"Do you know what it's like, Doctor, to be the last of your kind? To be thousands older than any other human could possibly live to? I'm so lonely, Doctor. I'm so alone."

Merlin felt the sobs rising in his throaght. They were deep, powerful sobs filling his mouth, desperate to get out.

The Doctor leant over, clearly about to pull Merlin into a hug.

" **NO.** " He felt his voice echo around the room, singed and laced with raw magic. The Doctor pulled back quickly, as if the force of Merlin's voice alone had pushed him away.

"Don't- don't touch me," Merlin was barely keeping himself together. "It's too dangerous."

The man stayed silent, but Merlin could feel the cogs turning behind his eyes. As confused as he seemed to be, he wasn't anywhere near as scared at he should be. Merlin supposed it could have been due to the terrifying near-death experience the man had just endured, but still, there was something different in his eyes, something far older than merlin had seen in a while.

He decided to find out for himself.

He shut his eyes, and let his magic probe at The Doctor's very being.

Usually Merlin could identify a species by the colour or texture of their essence. Humans tended to be some variation on brown and red, Silurians green and maroon, etcetera.

But this man. He felt like Everything. Every colour Merlin had ever seen and every colour he couldn't see. He felt like every texture Merlin had ever felt or would ever feel. Light and dark migled together in his heart, mixing in a swirl of shadows and suns.

Merlin's eyes shot open, fixing on The Doctor's face.

_Time Lord_


	3. Chapter 3

Of course. How could he have been anything else?

A small smile played across Merlin's lips. He wiped the tears from their tracks and sniffed, looking up at The Doctor.

"Okay."

"Okay what?" The Doctor looked at his quizzically, as Merlin fiddled with his faux leather bracelets.

"I'll tell you everything, but only if you're sure you want to know."

The Doctor nodded, and Merlin settled himself in his seat.

"I was born on earth, sometime around the fifth century AD, to a human mother and a not-quite human father who I never met until the day he died. In those years, Britain wasn't safe for my kind. I was the only one of my kind in the small village where I grew up, and as I did so, the differences between me and everybody else were quickly becoming more pronounced. When I was eighteen my mother sent me to the city to live with an old friend of hers. She said he could help me, and she was right."

Merlin smiled softly out at the diamond mountains, looking straight past The Doctor's head.

"When I got to the city, the first thing I was the execution of one of my kind. He had done nothing wrong, nothing to provoke this hatred. And all I could do was stand and watch. That was my first introduction to another of my kind. His death."

Merlin wouldn't let himself pause.

"His mother was at his funeral, and for his death, she vowed to take revenge by killing the kings son. Long story short, I saved the prince's life from her magic, and as a reward, the king made me his manservant. When I first met the prince, I thought he was a right prat. I was right, of course, he really was a bully back then."

From the very beginning of the story, The Doctor had been listening intently to every word Merlin had said, and he really wasn't used to it. The only people Merlin tended to trust with his story were children, and their listening skills were a tad less developed than the likes of centuries-old Time Lords.

"Oh, and there was a dragon."

"A dragon?" The Doctor was incredulous.

"A real arse of a dragon, at that; always speaking in circles. Merlin chuckled. "I guess he must have rubbed off on me."

"For years, I stayed by the princes side, but I couldn't tell him what I was. Ever. If anybody found out then I could have been executed by pyre, and I've seen enough of those to know that it's not a nice way to go." Merlin saw The Doctor's face scrunch up in sympathy from the corner of his eye. "But still I stayed loyal, protecting him from the shadows. We made friends along the way of course, plenty of them. The king's ward was like me, and she was kind and forgiving, until years of hiding who she was turned her heart cold. She was so much more similar to the king than she would ever admit. Her maidservant remained a beautiful soul until the end, and was one of my best friends when I first moved to the city. Then there was Lancelot. He wanted desperately to become a knight, but the laws dictated that any man not born of noble blood coould never become a knight. He did manage it in the end, under my prince's rule."

"And Gwaine." Merlin smiled wider. "Oh Gwaine, the glorious idiot. When you first met him I guess you'd peg him as the typical tavern hopper, always drunk and never staying in one place for long. And while I guess that's true, he was so much more than that. He had a heart of gold and a soul made of steel. He became a knight at the same time as Lancelot, but i never really figured out why he did it; he always preferred a travellers lifestyle. Then there was Elyan, Gwen's brother, and a brilliant friend, and Leon and Percival, who both embodied everything it is to truly be worthy of knighthood."

Merlin's smile lowered ever so slightly, and his eyes glazed over, looking almost crystaline.

"We had the best of times, adventures and laughter and every little wonderful thing that came along with it. But for everyone else, the adventure was only temporary, and laughter soon turned to silence. Morgana's heart was destroyed by the king's hatred, and she did her very best to destroy Camelot time and time again. Gwen married Arthur, and became queen. Lancelot died sacrificing himself to save the world in my place. Gwaine died tortured by Morgana. Elyan died saving his sister. Arthur died by one stupid mistake I made as a child. I thought I was going to be quick enough- I was going to save him- I- I-"

Merlin bought himself down from another frenzy, holding a hand out to The Doctor to keep him away.

"The rest of them died eventually, and I just can't seem to forget. They all died because of me and now I'm left here. Waiting."

"Why?" the first words The Doctor had spoken since the start of Merlin's tale came tumbling out of his mouth before he could check them. He begun gratouitously apologising, but Merlin just smiled at him.

"It's okay."

"There was a prophecy. Handed down through generations, I think. The prophecy spoke of the once and future king of Albion. It said that when he died, he would return in Albion's greatest time of need. I'm supposed to wait here for him." He paused for a second, looking at The Doctor. "I've lived through plenty of times of need. Famine. Genocide. War. I've seen the very worst of humanity over and over and over again, and he wasn't there for any of it."

He glanced down, staring at the marbled floor between his feet, and spoke in a quiet voice, singed with bitterness at the edges.

"I don't know if I want him back anymore..."

The Doctor leaned forwards. "I'm sorry you've had to go through that, but-" Merlin laughed.

"I'm fine, really. I've dealt wit this for over two thousand years. I've had to be. But I'm sure you have your questions, Doctor. Ask away."

The Time Lord eyed Merlin up and down.

"Who are you?"

Merlin grinned. "You still hadn't figured that out yet? You're the last Time Lord, with thousands of thoughts racing around your head and genius ideas swimming around in that brilliant brain of yours. I guess you just haven't found the right one yet. Still, you can see all of space and time and you still don't know who I am? I must have done a bloody good job."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at Merlin, brushing off his last comment. "How did you know that? I didn't tell you anything about myself." Merlin couldn't help but smile further, which must have irritated The Doctor even more. "Just tell me who you are."

"I go by many names, Doctor. Some knew me as Emrys, some have encountered Dragoon the Great, ot the Dolma. Others called me the Last Dragonlord, or simply magic itself. But I suppose you of all people, Doctor, can call me Merlin.


End file.
